Day eighteen
26 February 2009 02:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronToday was windy at first, later extremely warm. We rode horses out through the woods and around a lake. Good times were had by all.
I was riding Star first, who was the horse that dropped Fred yesterday and he was an absolute star. We were riding in a different area today with fewer well-defined paths- we started with a long hill down to an dry creek bed and quite a few horses weren't ready to cross it, which needed to be worked through. The way this is done is simply to keep the horse pointed in the right direction and give them the rein when they are there. No, you're not imagining giving them the rein enough- they need to feel no pressure from your hand when they are looking in the right direction. You could give them quite a wide space that counts as the right direction too - probably if they are within 45 degrees you want to leave the rein alone, if they are going past that point you will want to use the rein to correct them so they are facing the right way again. When they are facing the right way you can use a bit of leg to ask them forward once they have had time to check things out. If they are facing away from the thing you need to cross ( or approach, this is a general solution to scary objects as well ) then you don't want to be putting any more life in their feet and if they are facing the right way then you need to be leaving the rein alone.
If you correct them with the rein too much you will teach your horse not to go forward. I know for sure that I have done this and I'm sure a lot of other people have too. It seems to be a general pattern that we overuse our reins, particularly those who accustomed to a shorter english-style rein but most of the people on the course come from a western background and still tend to overuse the rein.
After that we continued on the path until it disappeared and then Martin dived off into the trees and we found ourselves weaving down a steep forested hill. This course has got me a lot braver about riding down hills in general and I would have been pretty nervous about doing this a few weeks ago. Whether I'll stay brave when I don't have a big solid George Michel saddle in front of me is another matter. I could deal with owning a saddle like that, no question.
Anyway our descent lead us to the side of a lake where we had to weave around some trees and over a fallen log. Little Star got his legs a little tangled and had to hop clear of it. This clearly gave him an idea because when we got back to the lake shore and had to trot to catch up he neatly popped over another ( very small ) fallen branch like a proper jumping pony.
We did some work on getting our horses to stand in the water ( which is basically the same process I've documented above for those reluctant ) and then Martin told us we were going to race to the other side of the lake. This involved more non-path adventures through the brush ( with me on the horse who chucked Fred off yesterday after bits of brush tickled his belly yesterday ) and then a brisk skip along the dam at the bottom of the lake. Then we were heading back. Martin had us take our horses out in different directions on the way back to get them used to working on the trail without other horses. I ended back going off with Jake on a little black-and-white paint horse who has been tending to bounce people ( specially Jake ) off but was behaving himself pretty well and we got back first by a narrow margin.
The second ride I was riding Pirate. I thought up that name, incidentally- he has an injured chest and I was trying to think up words that were associated with chests. Anyway, my current description of his ride would be driving a truck with suspension springs four times longer than normal. Wallowy but comfortable once you get used to it. This was a more rapid round, loping around the dam and up a rocky slope and then trotting down through the steep brushy slope and splitting up in the woods with different people going in different groups. Pirate wanted to run quite a lot and I did some work on trying to make sure I was controlling at least his speed or his direction...
After another large and delicious lunch we headed for home, stopping for a tour of the breeding facilities belonging to Carol Rose Quarter Horses on the way through. We met some of their star stallions, Shining Spark and Peptoboonsmal ( those names should mean something to Quarter Horse people ) and in spite of all the millions in winnings that Shining Spark has generated I would say that Peptoboonsmal was the better horse from a conformational point of view.
They showed us around the laboratory where they do embryo transfer and ship semen around the US and talked a bit about the process, which is almost industrial in scale and efficiency. By taking ova from mares, fertilising them artificially and then implanting the embryo in surrogate mothers they are able to breed many more offspring from a single mare and stallion than would have been possible in the past.
This is clever, but I wonder about the benefits of breeding on this scale in a contracting market and in the long term there may be a lot of horses from very successful bloodlines, but with all those full brothers and sisters I find myself questioning the benefits of this type of work in terms of the Quarter-Horse gene pool in the long run.
However, there were baby horses, which were cute!
We got home just as Jake was going to gather the cattle in for a bit of A-pen work with one of his own horses after class ( with a whole bunch of horses at Martin's, Jake often has exercising to do while the rest of us are finishing our chores and getting ready for tea ) and set about unpacking the float, which meant only Pierre saw Jake get bucked off dramatically into the fence, land and lie still. He was out cold when Pierre got down to him and when he came round a minute or so later Jake couldn't remember anything much. For the next hour or so we had a circular discussion along the lines of: "So what happened?" "You got bucked off." "Who by?" "Pete." "Why?" "The cows upset him." "What happened?"
It was quite worrying, probably more so for people like me who have never been there before- many off the people on the course are old hands at concussion and Martin has certainly experienced it on various occasions, at least once he finished working a horse without being able to remember any of it.
Anyway, Jake has now been to Denton and had a proper check up and his head isn't too bad and his ribs aren't broken although they may be a little cracked all of which is good news, but another reminder that even the best of us ( and Jake is certainly the equal of any of the students here ) can run into trouble doing this. Nothing around horses is safe and even if we're doing the best we can, things can go wrong.
I was riding Star first, who was the horse that dropped Fred yesterday and he was an absolute star. We were riding in a different area today with fewer well-defined paths- we started with a long hill down to an dry creek bed and quite a few horses weren't ready to cross it, which needed to be worked through. The way this is done is simply to keep the horse pointed in the right direction and give them the rein when they are there. No, you're not imagining giving them the rein enough- they need to feel no pressure from your hand when they are looking in the right direction. You could give them quite a wide space that counts as the right direction too - probably if they are within 45 degrees you want to leave the rein alone, if they are going past that point you will want to use the rein to correct them so they are facing the right way again. When they are facing the right way you can use a bit of leg to ask them forward once they have had time to check things out. If they are facing away from the thing you need to cross ( or approach, this is a general solution to scary objects as well ) then you don't want to be putting any more life in their feet and if they are facing the right way then you need to be leaving the rein alone.
If you correct them with the rein too much you will teach your horse not to go forward. I know for sure that I have done this and I'm sure a lot of other people have too. It seems to be a general pattern that we overuse our reins, particularly those who accustomed to a shorter english-style rein but most of the people on the course come from a western background and still tend to overuse the rein.
After that we continued on the path until it disappeared and then Martin dived off into the trees and we found ourselves weaving down a steep forested hill. This course has got me a lot braver about riding down hills in general and I would have been pretty nervous about doing this a few weeks ago. Whether I'll stay brave when I don't have a big solid George Michel saddle in front of me is another matter. I could deal with owning a saddle like that, no question.
Anyway our descent lead us to the side of a lake where we had to weave around some trees and over a fallen log. Little Star got his legs a little tangled and had to hop clear of it. This clearly gave him an idea because when we got back to the lake shore and had to trot to catch up he neatly popped over another ( very small ) fallen branch like a proper jumping pony.
We did some work on getting our horses to stand in the water ( which is basically the same process I've documented above for those reluctant ) and then Martin told us we were going to race to the other side of the lake. This involved more non-path adventures through the brush ( with me on the horse who chucked Fred off yesterday after bits of brush tickled his belly yesterday ) and then a brisk skip along the dam at the bottom of the lake. Then we were heading back. Martin had us take our horses out in different directions on the way back to get them used to working on the trail without other horses. I ended back going off with Jake on a little black-and-white paint horse who has been tending to bounce people ( specially Jake ) off but was behaving himself pretty well and we got back first by a narrow margin.
The second ride I was riding Pirate. I thought up that name, incidentally- he has an injured chest and I was trying to think up words that were associated with chests. Anyway, my current description of his ride would be driving a truck with suspension springs four times longer than normal. Wallowy but comfortable once you get used to it. This was a more rapid round, loping around the dam and up a rocky slope and then trotting down through the steep brushy slope and splitting up in the woods with different people going in different groups. Pirate wanted to run quite a lot and I did some work on trying to make sure I was controlling at least his speed or his direction...
After another large and delicious lunch we headed for home, stopping for a tour of the breeding facilities belonging to Carol Rose Quarter Horses on the way through. We met some of their star stallions, Shining Spark and Peptoboonsmal ( those names should mean something to Quarter Horse people ) and in spite of all the millions in winnings that Shining Spark has generated I would say that Peptoboonsmal was the better horse from a conformational point of view.
They showed us around the laboratory where they do embryo transfer and ship semen around the US and talked a bit about the process, which is almost industrial in scale and efficiency. By taking ova from mares, fertilising them artificially and then implanting the embryo in surrogate mothers they are able to breed many more offspring from a single mare and stallion than would have been possible in the past.
This is clever, but I wonder about the benefits of breeding on this scale in a contracting market and in the long term there may be a lot of horses from very successful bloodlines, but with all those full brothers and sisters I find myself questioning the benefits of this type of work in terms of the Quarter-Horse gene pool in the long run.
However, there were baby horses, which were cute!
We got home just as Jake was going to gather the cattle in for a bit of A-pen work with one of his own horses after class ( with a whole bunch of horses at Martin's, Jake often has exercising to do while the rest of us are finishing our chores and getting ready for tea ) and set about unpacking the float, which meant only Pierre saw Jake get bucked off dramatically into the fence, land and lie still. He was out cold when Pierre got down to him and when he came round a minute or so later Jake couldn't remember anything much. For the next hour or so we had a circular discussion along the lines of: "So what happened?" "You got bucked off." "Who by?" "Pete." "Why?" "The cows upset him." "What happened?"
It was quite worrying, probably more so for people like me who have never been there before- many off the people on the course are old hands at concussion and Martin has certainly experienced it on various occasions, at least once he finished working a horse without being able to remember any of it.
Anyway, Jake has now been to Denton and had a proper check up and his head isn't too bad and his ribs aren't broken although they may be a little cracked all of which is good news, but another reminder that even the best of us ( and Jake is certainly the equal of any of the students here ) can run into trouble doing this. Nothing around horses is safe and even if we're doing the best we can, things can go wrong.
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Date: 25 Feb 2009 05:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Feb 2009 21:45 (UTC)- Crump